Growth in Singapore’s key non-oil exports slowed sharply in November after shipments to the city-state’s most important markets declined, but analysts said the moderation was expected and points to a more sustainable pace of growth next year.

Exports rose 10% from a year earlier in November, compared with October’s 34.5% rise, trade promotion agency International Enterprise Singapore said Friday.
The print was less than half the median forecast for 22.8% growth in a Dow Jones Newswires poll of economists, and was lower than even the most conservative estimate in the poll.

Exports dwarf Singapore’s US$300 billion ($394 billion) economy and are often seen as an indicator of global economic health.

But analysts say the decline isn’t too worrying, as it comes after higher-than-expected growth the previous month.

“If we look at the last two months’ numbers together it’s still a decent end to the year. The pullback that we see is perhaps because manufacturers are winding down after a busy year,” said CIMB economist Song Seng Wun, who had expected 18.5% growth. “The moderation points to a return to more normal levels of growth.”

Indeed, the Singapore dollar didn’t react much to the data. The US dollar rose to $1.3117 after the release, from $1.3111 immediately beforehand.

The government expects Singapore’s gross domestic product to grow nearly 15% this year before falling to around 4%-6% in 2011, in line with the country’s long-term sustainable growth path.

On-month, November exports fell 13% in seasonally adjusted terms after rising 5.8% on-month in October. The poll had projected a 1.2% median decline in month-on-month terms, with even the most pessimistic forecasters anticipating just a 4.7% contraction.

The data “reiterates our view that Singapore’s export recovery momentum may slow to an anemic pace for some months,” said Standard Chartered bank economist Alvin Liew, whose forecasts were the lowest in the poll. “The export recovery has probably already peaked, as inventory restocking was mostly completed in 2010.”

Exports to the US rose just 12.7% from last November after rising 72.2% on-year in October. Shipments to the European Union rose 19.8% from a year earlier after growing 69.9% in October, the data showed.

Exports to China grew 36.7% on year, below October’s 43.1%.

Asian economies like Singapore’s that are more export-dependent may see further weakness in their export and manufacturing for the next three to four months, before showing improvements late in the first quarter of 2011, Credit Suisse economist Robert Prior-Wandesforde said.

The United States “is clearly looking a lot better, but Europe remains a much bigger worry,” Prior-Wandesforde said. If Europe’s debt crisis “spreads to Spain and Italy, risk appetite will fall back...then we are looking at a renewed worry of a slowdown.”